


transcendence

by atmospherical



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Akashi Seijuurou and his sanity, Akashi and his conscience, Gen, Identity Issues, King Akashi Seijuurou, Psychological Drama, Subconscious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-25
Updated: 2014-02-25
Packaged: 2018-01-13 18:12:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1236205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atmospherical/pseuds/atmospherical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>he was there first and then he wasn’t. there is only so much power you can beg for your own good.</p>
            </blockquote>





	transcendence

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: identity and (in)sanity problems are tackled here. this is my first knb fic ever and it's actually a request + dedication for a friend. originally posted on tumblr.

_{buzz}_

_{the scene flickers}_

Akashi sees white. Thousands of layers and miles of invisible tracks covered in white, clean glaze stains on dull walls he exhales a frosty breath of ghostly grey smoke it tingles and mingles in the air just above his head. Cold sweeps and seeps through the fabric of his clothes, bitter cold jabbing punctures on his skin like little knives dripping drops of venomous chemical into the tissues of his system.

He takes a step forward and stops, dead footsteps silent words he feels a knot of unpleasant clench around the chamber where his heart lies. The force constricts, as if forcing him to _notice me notice me notice me_ , three times of the same command and like it was a charm which started it all, Akashi murmurs a word that he promised he wouldn't let himself feel anymore.

_Hesitation_.

He runs his tongue in between teeth; there is that harsh taste again, followed by a saline taste of acrid poison. They taste like acid and alkaline altogether, ready to burst ready to explode. _Hydrochloric acid...sodium chloride..._ he knows his chemistry too well.

Except it wasn't sodium chloride. Akashi was sure that sodium chloride is not red in color but he, too, remembers what is _red_ when you are alive and breathing--

_Blood._

_-_

_{buzz}_

_{the screen flickers}_

Hesitation wasn't supposed to be in his book, it was never meant to be there because _father said hesitation is not perfection and hesitation destroys you just the same way failure would_. 

Akashi kneels and his breathing weakens. He has no idea where he is, what he's doing or where the _hell_ is this place-- there are too many questions and they squirm and laugh and scream in his head all at once, ticking time bomb calling for help ( _disarm me, disarm me, please_ ) 

White fills his surrounding and he stares, left eye ( _red, so red the color of power and fury and--_ ) barricaded and hidden behind thick strands of his fiery fringe while the right one, open gate and all, looks up towards the ceiling that stretches on for miles, just like any other path shall his feet proceeds next. There is no line, no pavement, no bricks, _nothing._ It was as if no matter how hard he tries to dig for an answer, no matter how intelligent or brilliant or _perfect_ he is, _escape is but futile._

Akashi wonders if he is actually inside a hollow cubicle; like a dangerous predator they put a leash on in case he goes out of control and starts cutting down necks and tearing off skins or like a criminal they kept behind bars in case he starts taking away lives and throwing bullets into where your heart is.

But you see, Akashi never lose control. He does not lose it, he possessed it.

-

_{buzz}_

_{the screen flickers}_

It's getting harder to breathe but Akashi stays put, thinking. He was seated on the ground god knows what the coordinate of that particular white space is until the thoughts fade and he was disturbed by a familiar calling that belongs ( _belonged?_ ) to a boy.

He has no idea where he's walking to, since everything and every point looks the same, but Akashi knew better than to trail blindly. Eyes shut, he allows the voice to be his guidance--

Maybe, if there's a chance, they can leave this rabbit hole together.

(or maybe not)

-

_{buzz}_

_{the screen flickers}_

_"You."_

His face, grim. His lips, sealed. His eyes, cautious (they always are).

_"You are-"_

Akashi feels the acid crawling up along the pipe of his gullet. It oozes and boils and forms bubbles made of hell fire they burn him young and alive. He knows pain and he _does_ feel it but--

\--pain is a test so endure instead of caving in; endure like you were taught to, endure like you are the last man standing, like you are perfect and nothing, _not a single damn thing_ , can ever touch you, _at all._

_"I am you."_

It's a mirror, a clone of someone he knew very, _very_ well.

"Akashi Seijuurou," and for the first time ever since he found himself in a space where walls do not exist and time is just a manifestation of mankind's conscience, the corner of his lips curl up into a thin yet deceptive smile, "I see you have that kind of eyes."

-

{buzz}

{the screen flickers}

They sit on the floor (if a floor even exists at all) facing each other, white space a partition measured in centimeters a gap of hallucination.

"Tell me where this is and who you are."

It wasn't a request because it's not what he does, not what he was taught. Akashi commands and he does not request (because _"Seijuurou, power allows you to have anything and everything. It is defined by righteousness and infinite perfection. You either lose or you win, there's no in between,"_ ).

"We are but one. Father calls me Seijuurou."

The air tingles once again and Akashi feels the ground beneath his bare feet shifts. How is it possible for the ground to quake when he can't even feel what he is sitting on? Akashi hates being illogical.

"And this, this cubicle of vacant white, _this_ is where you _live_."

Biting his lower lip, Akashi has his hand on his eyes, covering half of his face. His lips curve upwards, a tiny smile and then a wide grin and then and then--

-

_{tick, tock--}_

_{grainy screen, black lines}_

Akashi _laughs._

He is laughing and it was the best thing ever since he landed on this silly little - what was it? _Ah yes_ , this silly little _cubicle_. 

"Subconscious."

"True."

" _You_ brought _me_ here?" when his laughter ceased, the smile has been replaced by a pair of challenging red eyes, poker face and emotion that is hardly describable.

"Correction," Akashi watches the way his other self smirks, the way his clone's eyes have mutated differently, red and yellow irises battling against each other (as he unconsciously reaches out to touch _his own_ left eye behind the fringe, _hoping_ it  _stays_ red), "you brought me."

Akashi nods, smiling a little.

-

_{grainy screen, ticking clock}_

"Do you remember this?"

"It's a dead ant."

Seijuurou, Akashi noticed, has shorter, uneven fringe, like it was meant to _be_ short so the world can see how dilated his pupils are, how dominant and effective and _absolute_ he is. They may be one and the same, however, Akashi doubts that he is indeed facing himself right then and there--

"You k--" Akashi shakes his head, " _we_ killed it. We killed it because we wanted to show father how capable we are, how much of a winner we always are. We _even_ dug the whole nest of it and we killed each and every bits of them like they were made to _be_ hunted down--"

"--But father, he," Seijuurou pauses, Akashi waits, "--he is always busy. And that was when we realized that it doesn't matter, none of those ever pleased him because it was never the kind of victory he was looking for. He didn't ask for a nest of dead ants because--"

_"Because bullying someone or something weaker than you isn't the way to do things."_

They had spoken in unison, at the same time and no word, not even the slightest alphabet was missed. Akashi keeps his gaze straight and stern, observing the slight tremor overtaking Seijuurou's fingers.

-

_{the screen flickers}_

"Are you happy with the way you are doing things?"

"That is not something I aim. It's a hindrance to my goal."

"What is your goal?"

"Power. Perfection," the clone pauses, _"Victory."_

"Maybe you're wrong, maybe _we_ are wrong. Maybe," Akashi bites the insides of his cheek, drawing blood roaming around his gum, his teeth, his tongue ( _sodium chloride, how dirty_ ), "--to win is to defeat....or _be_ defeated; perhaps that is the greatest achievement our father have been looking for."

"Maybe," a blur of red and yellow irises they flare, sending daggers down Akashi's identical ones, so similar yet so different, "or _you_ could be wrong."

-

{black screen}

"Let's talk about other things."

Seijuurou keeps his head low but Akashi keeps his held high, proud and loud.

"How was it," slips a tiny _treacherous_ smile, "to take over my place?"

"You failed and you started it all, you _created me_. You _failed_ , I didn't and I won't," Seijuurou buries his head in between knees, chuckling, "I am not _like_ you. I'm not, I'm not--"

"You are true but so I am," Akashi stands, walking towards Seijuurou who stays seated. The two look at each other like there is never a necessity for words exchanged; he reads him, vice versa. It matters not who read who in the first place. Akashi knew there is a wire, some sort of thread that leads to a bridge, a bridge that exists in this cubicle, a perfect resemblance of their subconscious - _blank point plain ground of zero coordinate and devoid completion,_ "I know you feel it. Our father, he is mistaken. He has been wrong. You knew that. I know you do."

-

_{tick---tock---}_

_{red screen}_

"Time's up."

Akashi says nothing.

Seijuurou stands, their height identical and their gaze a dead ringer.

"Time to wake up," the clone mutters, "I must go."

When Akashi turns to watch his other self slowly leaving (shadow disappearing into thin air, never a trail of footprint on the ground, never the intention to leave marks and remnants), he feels fire on his eye, his _left_ eye.

He nods like the burn of his left iris is normal, like the sensation of an eye being gouged out was meant to be, like everything is alright and _he is alright._

He reaches out a hand to feel the socket--

(only to feel it _damaged_  , with crimson streaming down his face staining drops of red on his bare feet)

-

_{white screen}_

In his mind when he went to bed, Seijuurou finds himself sitting on cold floors too translucent for the eyes - _his eyes_ \- to see. Still, he knew he was never sitting on air. _That'd be highly illogical_ , he mutters.

In white space  ~~they~~ he nicknamed  _'The Cubicle'_ , Seijuurou finds himself standing in between depleted walls of the unseen (he can never see them but he knew, he knew there _are_ walls; he could _feel_ it), jailed and numb and alone sometimes he feels like his bones might crack and crumble to pieces, feels like he is surrounded by vaporous flame.

And sometimes, when things get messy, he'd feel a prick poking his eye, his _left transformed_ eye.

It may have been a nightmare (dream or reality, alive or dead) but nightmares are part of a flawed dream, an imperfection and he knew better than not to embrace it. After all, _control is perfection and perfection equals to absolute power._


End file.
